Well, got this far without a rant...and now I rant. The central theme is movie adaptations...period. Comics, books, TV shows, video games; movie adaptations in general suck big donkey dong...especially video game adaptations. Don't get me wrong. Some succeed in at least meeting not only expectations and level of goodness set forth by the original material (Fight Club, Gone With The Wind, The Exorcist to name a few), but even rarer have (in this humble writers opinion) exceeded the source material (The Shining...and I can't think of anything else). But in a nutshell, they (pardon my language) suck ass. Perfectly good books have been ruined (Dreamcatcher and The Ruins off the top of my head) due to movie people not only refusing to stick to source material, but for allotting proper resources to do the damn thing right. T.V. shows done this way is a good example. Anyone remember Dragon Ball: Evolution? No. Either you refused to watch it (lucky), or you did watch it and promptly either repressed the memory or chose to eliminate it from their minds altogether before they felt like taking the Oedipus route and plucking the eyes out of their own heads. And although comic movies are in right now, and some are pretty good, quite a number of them achieved suckatude on an almost biblical scale. Electra...suck. Fantastic Four...lame. Howard the Duck...you know, I could go on, but I think I might just stroke out. Oh, and last but not least, let us not forget the video games. I honestly cannot think of any video game adaptations and think that any of them where even passable.
So, why do they fail. First, lack of following of source material. Ultimate example, Dragonball: Evolution. Kept the name of characters. Thats it. When you have such a cult following and say, hmmm, nope, go with something new. But keep the character names...that will make the fanboys happy at least. Same goes with dreamcatcher. Second, lack of monies kills. Now I am not saying just throw money for the sake of throwing. But at least provide a reasonable goddamn budget. Cheaper is not always better. Third, choosing a series that was incredibly successful and trying to put it into a different format for the sake of greed. No. Fucking no. This applies to all video games thus far made. Do you honestly believe that you can take something with 30+ hours of interactivity and condense it into 90 minute film? So again, fucking no. Interesting side note, the last tip of fail is often combined with previous two to create a true genocide of a film.
How to succeed, or at least get onto the road of not creating movies whose only purpose is firewood or human waste receptacles? For starters, avoid doing stupid shit as mentioned above. Follow the original story. It was popular in the first place jackass, so at least by following the original story somewhat will help you avoid disaster. Give your film a proper budget. Now Im not saying just throw money at a project. Lesson learned from Waterworld. But at least give them money enough to give them a chance. Don't put video games into movies. It ends badly. If you have to put it into another format, think mini-series or television, so you don't have to go crazy with cuts just to get a watchable product. Japanese do it and it works. This bit also applies to all other source material. And finally, and most importantly, dont be fucking greedy. Alot of problems would simply not exist if greed were taken out of the equation. Without greed, shit like Star Wars Holiday Special wouldn't exist. Don't do something only for the effect that a few extra bucks could be earned out of it. Make a decent product so that we the viewer feel we wisely spent ten bucks to see it.
That is my rant. Hope you liked it. If you don't, fuck you. I don't care anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment